This chapter took a long time to write… midterms got in the way. Here you go…
Alonzo, Omega, January 5 2185
Alonzo had been working for Kenn for quite a while, grabbing old tech to repair and sell at his shop. He'd found quite a few interesting parts, like a partially working aircar thruster inside an old public toilet down on B level, and a case of rifle mass accelerator units in the waste bin behind a warehouse owned by the Blue Suns mercenary group. He had to get out of the warehouse area pretty quickly when he heard angry yells from inside the warehouse and saw blurry armoured shapes heading toward the back door. This is why he had a pistol after all, but not many can stand up to a regiment of fully outfitted mercs and expect to live.
So he booked it back to the shop as fast as his legs would carry him. These will get us a good two hundred credits per unit if they all work right, Alonzo thought as he climbed a small covered gangplank from B level to C level, trying to avoid the gazes of the krogan and batarian guards standing along the edges of the walkway. They were always on guard for undesirables and shifty characters (As if there were any people here that weren't shifty) and took eye contact as a challenge.
Alonzo reached Kenn's store just as he finished a sale of circuitboards to a salarian. Kenn looked exstatic, from his lighter step and chipper voice. "I just got rid of the Serrice model M-445G military boards we had sitting in back, that salarian paid very well for them. Now we have a little extra left over. Halfsies as always, and 500 creds more toward my shuttle ticket out of here. Now, what did you find on your run, Al?" Kenn had a tendency to shorten Alonzo's name, maybe unconsciously, but Alonzo actually liked it, and was beginning to use his nickname to introduce himself.
"I grabbed a box of mass accelerator units from a Blue Suns warehouse down on B," Alonzo explained, "and they almost saw me. I don't think I've moved that fast this week." He dropped the box down on the back counter and Kenn rushed over to do diagnostics.
"Come on over here, Al. Get out your omni-tool and help me sort through these. Woah, these are high-level pulsar units! It looks like a team set, at least five working ones here. We could make some serious creds off this. It just gets better having you around, maybe…" Kenn trailed off as they were working, and Alonzo glanced up at him.
"Maybe what?"
"Nothing. Just keep going, Al. I want to have the set done and packed in the special-stock safe before the day is out."
Talia Nadar, Omega, May 23 2185
Talia worked as a dancer in Aria's Afterlife, up on the third floor mostly. She was very pretty but lacked a certain – something – that Aria wanted for the girls at the entrance to the club. Talia was okay with that because while the first twenty years of trying to be one of the lucky few to get down on the main floor made for good competition, it was boring and tedious now. Talia had biotic potential, more than many of her co-workers, but kept it a secret from Aria to avoid being forced into Eclipse. As such, she could also read the minds of anyone who showed an interest in her and react better. She was very good at her job.
She always saw the same faces frequenting the club, the rich merc leaders, affiliates of Aria's, soldiers who thought they had the nerve to stay all night in her club. The soldiers usually got thrown out after 'midnight' when they could barely stand, or started groping the dancers. Humans and batarians were the worst for that; the men saw the asari as the ultimate prize in bed for some reason. Maybe it was that the asari were tenfold more exotic than any human or batarian woman. Many times she had to swat away a mind thinking of doing profane things to her. It tired her out though, as Talia wasn't trained in biotics. She had learned most of her skills on her own in Omega since she got here. As such, she could get caught off her guard later in the evenings. One such evening, she saw two new faces (sort of) on her level of the club. They were two males, a human and a quarian. They looked like they were celebrating something important but also out of their element in here, being young and new to Omega. The two looked like they still had the spark, the spark of hope that people new to Omega carried with them but lost quickly as the station sucked their will to live away. Talia was so busy watching the two that she didn't see the three batarian mercs shambling up to her table.
"Hey baby, come on, let's go find a quiet spot together eh?" One of them said, shocking Talia out of her quiet thoughts.
"What? No, no I don't do that. The girls you're looking for are three levels down. You'd prefer them to me." She hated this line of thought very much.
"I think you'll do just fine," another growled at her, "For each of us. Isn't that right?" The batarians laughed raucously as one tried to reach for her uniform.
A hand flew out of nowhere and caught the batarian hand. "I think she said no, don't you, pendejo?" The human who she had been watching had appeared from somewhere beside the table in less than a second.
"Filthy human, how dare you touch me!" The batarian tried to rip his hand out of the – boy it looked like- but the lock he was in was too tight. "I think we should teach him a lesson boys!" Talia backed up, off the table she had been on, in case a fight broke out. She didn't think the boy had much of a chance against three batarian mercenaries
"You don't want to do that here, not while Aria's watching," the boy pointed a thumb with his free hand at the camera on the post near them, "And Aria's always watching. I heard she kills the people who piss her off." He grinned a little at that comment.
The batarian eyed the camera, then muttered, "You might be right, human. But we'll be waiting for you outside the club for your 'treatment'." The batarian and the boy locked eyes for a moment, then the boy let the wristlock go loose and backed up a step with hands raised slightly. Then the batarian turned and, motioning to his compatriots, left the club.
"Are you alright?" The boy said to Talia, then motioned to the quarian who had apparently been waiting at the bar on this level. He glanced back at the door, then hurried over.
""I'm okay. Some people just don't get it. So, why did you do that for me? Nobody has even looked at the problems of the dancers, in all my hundred years of working here." She nodded slightly to the quarian as he stood next to the boy. "Now, to thank you properly, what are your names?"
"I'm Al, this is Kenn." The two boys nodded to each other, and Alonzo continued, "We work together at Kenn's Salvage around the corner."
"Yes, I've seen that shop a few times going to my apartment. It seems like a nice little establishment; I hope you make some decent money there. By the way, my name is Talia."
"How about we sit down somewhere and chat a little, Talia," the quarian, Kenn, said, "we are getting looks from the other patrons now."
So they sat down at the table Talia had been dancing on, or rather, started to sit down. As they were getting situated, a turian guard moved over to the table and told Talia, "Aria saw the whole thing; it was very helpful of you to intervene on our behalf, boy. However, as you know, you don't get paid for breaks, Talia. So I suggest getting rid of these two and back to work, or entertaining them." Then the guard circled around the center back to his post.
"Well, you heard him, better get out and enjoy yourselves like you were going to. I'll meet you two later sometime for a longer talk. And by the way, there's a back exit four floors down, behind the bar." She stood back up, climbed back onto the table, and, as she started to free her mind and dance, watched the two leave the club.
